The present invention relates to an optical system for measuring metabolism in a body or test subject which is arranged to have each of a large number of points arranged for irradiating a ray of light located outside of the test subject so as to identify the material inside of the test subject and measure the amount of the material or display it as an image.
There has been heretofore proposed an oximeter as an optical system for measuring metabolism in a body or an optical CT as an optical apparatus for measuring an image. The conventional optical CT is arranged to display a tomographic image standing for oxygen saturation in a living body by using absorption spectra of oxyhemoglobin. The measuring method employed by this optical CT includes the steps of irradiating rays of light onto the body one by one, detecting the light passed through the body, deriving light absorption of hemoglobin distributed inside of the body based on the intensity of the detected beam, and obtaining a tomographic image standing for oxygen saturation. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,281,645 and 5,148,022 disclose optical CT systems which measure biodynamics such as metabolism or circulation and display the measured result as an image by using a visible ray less body-injurious than to an infrared one. As an optical apparatus for measuring biodynamics, the J-P-A-60-199430 discloses an optical apparatus for measuring speed of blood flow from a reflected beam by the effect of a laser speckle method. Moreover, oximeter for measuring an oxygen density in blood by using a beam passed through a part of the body has been disclosed in J-P-A-55-24004.